In certain wireless communication systems, such as, for example, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) systems, hopping sequences are used pervasively in many aspects of system design and operation. For example, the forward and reverse link data channel transmissions and forward and reverse link control channels in OFDMA systems are often hopped in the frequency domain. In this regard, the term “hopping” refers to the pattern of frequency assignments being made. In general, hopping increases the frequency diversity experienced by a particular transmission, and averages out the level of interference perceived with respect to that transmission.
When a channel spans over multiple units of physical resources, the channel can be divided into a plurality of channel segments, with each channel segment transmitted over a subset of the physical resources allocated to the channel. The resources assigned to transmission of these channel segments can be derived based on a plurality of hopping sequences. For example, one hopping sequence can be used to derive the resource assignment for each channel segment. The “resource assignment” of a channel segment is referred to as the “hopping pattern”, or “hopping”, of that channel segment. With respect to this application, the terms “resource assignment” of a channel segment and “hopping” of a channel segment have the same meaning and are used interchangeably. In the existing systems, when multiple resources are assigned to a given channel, the hopping patterns of the channel segments are typically uncoordinated, except for the fact that collisions of the hopping patterns for these channel segments are avoided. In fact, it is a commonly accepted practice to provide hopping patterns for these multiple channel segments that are as random and independent as possible, in order to achieve good performance. However, this practice may not be advantageous for transmissions of certain types of information (e.g., control channel transmissions) that are encoded over multiple resources but within one frame. In this case, the frequency diversity within a frame should be maximized to improve the performance of the control channels involved. Therefore, a pressing need exists for an approach that can be used for coordinating the hopping of multiple channel segments, and improving system performance for certain transmissions, such as control channel transmissions or other types of transmissions.